“Nah, nah, Bro, I have money and I have all sorts of things in there: my guns, rifles, bullets.”
Federal authorities revealed images of the “hidden” room with two firearms and ammunition that they found in a house of producer and artist manager Raphy Pina Nieves in Caguas.
The images had been presented during the trial last month in the Federal Court in Hato Rey, but had not been shown to the public outside the courtroom of Judge Francisco Besosa.
The photos are within a presentation in “Power Point” of the federal prosecutor’s office that the defense of the producer requested that it be placed in the case file.
The request for the document, presented by the Public Ministry to the jury in the final arguments, arose a day after the jury issued a guilty verdict against Pina Nieves for illegal possession of weapons.
The defense said it needed the document as part of its preparation for when it goes to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston.
The defense motion states that it was an “error in law” that the statement of a lawyer for Pina Nieves was allowed to be presented during the trial as “proof of conscience of guilt” of the accused.
According to the prosecution, in a previous motion, a lawyer for Pina Nieves stated: “Just the fact that the Public Ministry knew that the defendant was resigned to the fact that he would have to spend time in prison is a tremendous advantage to have in a negotiation of allegation of guilt ”.
In its motion of December 23, the defense indicated that the federal prosecutor’s office “placed considerable emphasis on that statement during the final argument and in its rebuttal argument, thus aggravating the undue damage to the rights of Mr. Pina Nieves.”
The producer rejected offers to plead guilty and maintains that he is innocent.
